Employee From JD's Restaurant Writes a Letter

This is a letter that a former employeed of JD’s Atlanta restaurant wrote:

I worked at Jermaine Dupri’s Café also know as Cafe Dupri’s located in Buckhead from around February 2008 until last month when the AM employees showed up for a regular scheduled workday only to find the restaurant closed, locked and abandoned. Our initial thoughts were that the restaurant had closed completely. However, they’d (meaning management a.k.a. Tina, Jermaine’s Mother) had changed the operating hours and the new hours no longer included breakfast and lunch service and with no warning about 15 people were suddenly out of a job. Thankfully, I keep 2 jobs I was not totally screw by her act of bad taste. However, I was still due 2 checks, 1 of which I received on July 17. I deposited this check into my checking account only to have it bounced because the account is closed. I am not surprise the check bounced. Every other week on payday I’d visit Suntrust Bank on Peachtree, sometimes visiting the same bank teller for days, sometimes weeks until my PAYROLL check was finally cleared. But this was still a new low for her. She’d always answered calls regarding her NSFs. But, as of today July 25 @ around 6:30 pm none of the 20 or so employees of Cafe Dupri’s cafe, including myself have heard any response from her. Some of my co-workers are facing eviction and are awaiting this paycheck to pay back rent. A lead chef even had his landlord come to the café as proof that he is not just ignoring his rental obligation. Others, like me, need it to meet other financial obligations. This is absurd and suddenly not anything you’d expect from a man who has nightclubs being advertised for routinely, songs being played on the radio, and certainly not from someone who’d you have to listen to on the radio dee-jaying while YOU’RE driving home from work, where they are not being paid! Two of the employees went to Check Cashing offices where they routinely cash their checks and were threatened with arrest because the bank account in which their payroll checks are drawn on had been closed. Unbeknownst to them, the account had been closed. I know the economy is bad, both Tina and Jermaine should still meet their payroll obligations.